Letter to David Heath MP, 20 November 2010
Dear David,
Having been concerned about various Frome (and national) issues, I have written my first activist letters for a number of years for publishing in the local newspapers, and have also published them on a temporary website at the links at the bottom of this letter.
Could you pass the links to these letters to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Transport Secretary, the Education Secretary, the Energy/Environment Secretary, the Business Secretary and the Prime Minister as within these letters, the government is challenged to address the investment issues raised? If we have savage quick cuts without any investments in local infrastructure or market alternatives, then we really are doomed. In business, if you cut back on everything without any investments for the future whatsoever, guess what (?) - you will go bust, and I just hope that the political class really understands this.
My proposals ask for modest investments that can create real jobs in the private and skills training sector as well as revitalising our local economies which will help - in the long term - to reduce the national debt (its not all about the global economy).
My proposals ask for modest investments that can create real jobs in the private and skills training sector as well as revitalising our local economies which will help - in the long term - to reduce the national debt (its not all about the global economy).
Project 1. A Shopping List for Saxonvale
As you know, there are proposals afoot to bring Tescos right into the town centre which will ruin our ancient market town. Rather than just protesting against a ghastly idea, I have put forward serious creative alternatives which include the following:
• A new transport infrastructure including two new train stations in Frome to bring people to the town without cars (I know you are a rail campaigner and your support for this will be most helpful)
• A new transport infrastructure including two new train stations in Frome to bring people to the town without cars (I know you are a rail campaigner and your support for this will be most helpful)
• Mixed workshops and studios to boost Frome's arts & crafts businesses - a unique selling point (USP) of the town.
• 'A Creative Industries Apprenticeship College' to fill the skills training vacuum that has existed in the town for twenty years!
• A Tescos challenge for a low carbon supermarket (such en entity can exist)
• Mixed shops, cafes, houses and craft stalls in a car-free and wi-fi Saxonvale, based around courtyards and pleasure gardens
• An anchor office development
• An anchor low carbon hotel
Whilst most of these developments can be funded under a similar scheme that my architect father created for Keynsham in the 1970s, I do ask for the following commitments and backing from national government:
1. The backing for a local supermarket 1% 'give-back tax' where this money goes towards local community projects (not the national treasury). When local shopkeepers make money, they spend it locally whereas the supermarkets take millions of pounds out of Frome without giving much back at all for circulating in the local economy and this situation has to change, especially in light of government cuts for local community projects (isn't it outrageous that Somerset County Council has cut all of the £160,000 arts budget that creates local economic activity whilst paying for 5 executives who earn this amount of money for themselves and £300,000 on an office! - refer to the letters in this weeks Somerset Standard). The 1% supermarket give-back is the bare minimum needed to help re-circulate cash locally for the community. The local banks may also consider the p.r. advantages of giving-back some money for local community projects.
2. I am asking for a national 1% 'skills investment tax' on business to fund apprenticeship colleges - business says that it wants skilled workers yet expects to get its graduates for free. As Britain has to compete with a top class skills base, we should be prepared to fund these skills or wither as a second class nation! A local apprenticeship college will also provide a skills-based route for young people not going to university, for older people wishing to re-train as jobs for life no longer exist, for the long term unemployed and for adult leisure and advancement within the community - wow! We would be mad not to invest.
3. I have put forward better alternatives for funding tuition fees, though my experience over the years is that governments tend to ignore ideas that come from outside their own think tanks, ideologies or manifestos - maybe things will be different this time?
4. As the public cupboard is bare, I propose that we will need to 'save up' for restoring our railways and public transport at the 'end of the age of oil' with modest 'project taxes' that can accumulate over the 10-20 years needed for these projects. This is a real government challenge for real green jobs, as we have all been (quite frankly) fed up with governments who give all the rhetoric about the environment without ever actually doing anything - well, this is your chance and, as we haven't got much time before the price of oil becomes prohibitively expensive, you/we had better get a move on.
I was quite encouraged when David Cameron promised £200 billion for infrastructure projects in the next five years at the CBI conference, though this will go towards national prestige projects - dangerously leaving all our provincial towns and regions with no transport systems at the end of the age of oil. My proposals for give-back (or ring-fenced/hypothecated) 'project taxes' will drip feed money into our provincial and city transport systems for the next 10-20 years without affecting the government's central budget. We have to start now on the new job-creating transport alternatives or (again quite frankly) face a really bleak future at the end of the age of oil (or, worse still, no future at all). It doesn't have to be like this and the future could be really rosy if governments, working with communities and business, get their act together, and this needs ACTION and FUNDING, not just cosy words.
Project 2. The Cheese & Grain Community Centre.
You will find on my temporary website a letter concerning Frome's Cheese & Grain Community Centre which was published in the 4 November Somerset Standard and has helped to get a response with a front page headline saying "Council will make the Cheese & Grain Top Class". Government backing for a 1% supermarket give-back tax will be most helpful in this regard.
With thanks David for your continual support for Frome, its people and its local economy,
Tim Ashby
email: ashbydesigns@yahoo.co.uk
WEBSITE LINKS
Project 1. A Shopping List for Saxonvale - http://sustainablesaxonvalewebstartscom.WebStarts.com/index.html Project 2. The Cheese & Grain Community Centre. - http://sustainablesaxonvalewebstartscom.WebStarts.com/cheese_and_grain_1.html Open Letters (including this one) - http://sustainablesaxonvalewebstartscom.WebStarts.com/open_letters.html
P.S. As I am a self employed single dad running a workshop and designing/launching a new website at plansclub.com, I am limited as to how much free time, effort and thought I can give to local, national or global politics and environmental/economic issues, though do please contact me if you have any queries. Any feedback for my efforts will also be appreciated.
Project 1. A Shopping List for Saxonvale - http://sustainablesaxonvalewebstartscom.WebStarts.com/index.html Project 2. The Cheese & Grain Community Centre. - http://sustainablesaxonvalewebstartscom.WebStarts.com/cheese_and_grain_1.html Open Letters (including this one) - http://sustainablesaxonvalewebstartscom.WebStarts.com/open_letters.html
P.S. As I am a self employed single dad running a workshop and designing/launching a new website at plansclub.com, I am limited as to how much free time, effort and thought I can give to local, national or global politics and environmental/economic issues, though do please contact me if you have any queries. Any feedback for my efforts will also be appreciated.
Related Open Letters
Letter to Frome Town Council, 20 November 2010
Dear Frome Town Council,
You are on the threshold of being able to make some historic decisions for our town which can either blight our community or can set us on a rosy and sustainable path for the future.
I have created two seriously thought out and practical documents to help us in our quest for a sustainable future:
1. An 'Open Letter to the Cheese & Grain Trustees and the People of Frome' which, you are no doubt aware, was published in the 4 November edition of the Somerset Standard. You can view this letter on my temporary website at:
http://sustainablesaxonvalewebstartscom.WebStarts.com/cheese_and_grain_1.html
2. A 'Shopping List for a sustainable Saxonvale' which has yet to be published, though which is being sent to yourselves, to David Heath for passing onto Government Ministers and to the local (and national) media. This letter can be viewed at:
http://sustainablesaxonvalewebstartscom.WebStarts.com/index.html with the shorter version at:
http://sustainablesaxonvalewebstartscom.WebStarts.com/saxonvale_2.html
If you choose the wise decision of setting Frome on a sustainable path for the future, you will be very busy working on and lobbying for the following projects:
2.1. Helping to create Frome's New Transport Infrastructure
2.2. Attracting the right businesses that will help in the creation of a sustainable Saxonvale development (Saxonvale can be developed over time rather than quickly with an inappropriate car-based supermarket)
2.3. Creating affordable and low rent/rates workshops and studios in Saxonvale to boost the town's creative industries.
2.4. Lobbying for a 'Creative Industries Apprenticeship College' to fill the skills training vacuum that has existed in the town for twenty years
2.5. Attending to the sustainable energy issues that will face Frome at the end of the age of oil.
In my letter to David Heath which can viewed on my temporary website alongside this letter at:
http://sustainablesaxonvalewebstartscom.WebStarts.com/open_letters.html
I am lobbying for development money for Frome and, after viewing David Heath's letter and the 'Shopping List for Saxonvale' document, I hope that this will encourage you all to lobby for attracting this sustainable development cash.
As you will be very busy on these sustainable projects, you will be on overstretch if you take on the running of the Cheese & Grain (of which I am highly critical). It is not your job to run our arts & culture institutions anymore than it is your job to run the art, design and crafts workshops and studios, or the offices and hotel, or the Apprenticeship College suggested for Saxonvale. It is your job to facilitae and support the infrastructure that can help these businesses and institutions to flourish in our town, and I wish you great success on lobbying for this new infrastructure for our town in the 21st century.
All the best
Tim Ashby
email: ashbydesigns@yahoo.co.uk
P.S. This letter and hyperlinked documents give you the power to make the planning decisions for our town in co-operatation with the townspeople - Mendip District must be excluded from the planning role as, historically, it has crammed in housing in our development opportunities to maximise its council tax revenues - without corresponding investment in the services to support the increase in our population. Mendip has used Frome as a CASH-COW for itself rather than for the interests of the town (the car parking disputes are another example of this) and if it is let anywhere the Saxonvale development, it will do the same again, maximising its own cash income against the town's economic interests.
Also, Frome's amazing architectural heritage has been created by the townspeople over centuries and not by faceless planners in a faraway council who don't care about or understand the town's interests. Mendip has taken the planning and building process away from us and even wanted to destroy our heritage by demolishing the historic Trinity Street area, by driving a fast road through Sun Street and Whittox Lane and by putting a supermarket where the Cheese & Grain is (luckily, Frome's protests stopped this). We must take-back our planning powers from Mendip District Council so that Frome people can again develop their own town, this time for the 21st century.
Open Letter regarding a car-free Saxonvale - 19 June 2011
Dear Frome Town Council
I would like to belatedly congratulate you on the recent historic elections that saw a majority of Independent councillors elected - sometimes in this Big Society we are just too busy with our daily lives that it can take weeks to send a congratulatory message! I am sure that all councillors of whatever party will give their best to Frome with fresh and imaginative thinking.
Please find below a Round Robin letter that I am sending to you, the local press and others insisting that the Saxonvale site is just not suited to accommodate tens of thousands of car visits a month - I trust that you will all act with wisdom and imagination on this issue.
Wishing you all the best,
Tim Ashby
I would like to belatedly congratulate you on the recent historic elections that saw a majority of Independent councillors elected - sometimes in this Big Society we are just too busy with our daily lives that it can take weeks to send a congratulatory message! I am sure that all councillors of whatever party will give their best to Frome with fresh and imaginative thinking.
Please find below a Round Robin letter that I am sending to you, the local press and others insisting that the Saxonvale site is just not suited to accommodate tens of thousands of car visits a month - I trust that you will all act with wisdom and imagination on this issue.
Wishing you all the best,
Tim Ashby
A Car Free Saxonvale
So you have been working from home all week, either with the kids or glued to your computer on some deadline, when you decide that the cabin fever is getting too much and you must get out of the house. “Come on kids, we’re off to the new Saxonvale development” and you all dive in the car and join the traffic in the Portway, Christchurch Street , Bath Street or North Parade congestion tail-back nightmares to eventually arrive in Saxonvale to sit amongst the fumes and watch the oily run-off from the space-gobbling ugly Tescos car park washing into the River Frome!
Think about it - there are three possible entrances for cars into Saxonvale which will all cause congestion tail-back nightmares for the rest of our town: if, as proposed, Iceland is knocked down to make an access road into Saxonvale, then there will be tail-back car congestion and pollution in the Market Place, Bath Street, North Parade and beyond; if the planners decide to accomodate 5000+ car journeys a day coming in via Garsdale near the Lidl’s roundabout, then there will be living congestion nightmares in Christchurch Street East, Vicarage Street and the Portway with knock-on effects beyond; and finally, if we decide to let thousands of cars a day into Saxonvale with an access road by the old First & Last pub, then visitors arriving in Frome will be greeted with a traffic jam that goes all the way back to Asda and includes knock-on effects in New Road, Rodden Road, the Portway, Locks Hill and Christchurch Street East.
Whichever way you look at it, the Saxonvale site is just not suited for accommodating tens of thousands of car journeys a week without causing major quality of life, environmental, health and economic negative imacts on the town, for residents, visitors and businesses alike. If the planners and town, district or county councils allow a car-based development to take place in Saxonvale, they may as well replace the entrance signs to Frome with the following message: “Welcome to Gridlocked and Polluted Frome”. For the planning authorities to allow such major devestation on our town’s quality of life by basing the Saxonvale development around polluting and congestive cars will be a hugely irresponsible act for this generation and the next. Even when cars go electric with minimal instant pollution, the town will still be congested. The planning authorities must make it quite clear to any prospective developers or businesses coming to Saxonvale that it is impossible to grant planning permission based on car access due to the negative impacts on the rest of our town. This will mean that Tescos and other businesses can only come to Saxonvale on a car-free basis - if they have the imagination to adapt to a Frome-built pedestrianised shopping, business, education and entertainment centre with its integrated pleasure gardens!
If we are to make Frome a truly “Wonderful Place” to live in, to visit, to do business in or to find refreshment and entertainment, then Saxonvale must be developed with imaginitive design and linked to an integrated transport infrastructure that allows access to the site by foot, bicycle, taxi, bus and train - yes we can develop a bus station and new train stations on the existing quarry train track that touches the corner of the Saxonvale site - this will not only allow stone to be brought into Saxonvale by the quarry companies during the building process (thereby lessening congestion impact on our town during that phase of development) but will also bring visitors from afar right into our town centre with a minimal carbon footprint for decades into the future. Some folk out there may think that the Age of Municipalism is over and that we couldn’t possibly create two new train stations for the town; I would argue that if all it takes to make a train station is a concrete platform, some fencing, a ticket office, a roof and some scheduling with the quarry companies and train operators and, if we can’t manage that in an age when oil is getting scarcer and more expensive, then we may as well give up and go back to the Stone Age.
I believe in human adaptability and creative evolution and I do believe that we are going to create something special in Saxonvale which will be a pleasure dome of a place rather than a congestive polluted nightmare.
Think about it - there are three possible entrances for cars into Saxonvale which will all cause congestion tail-back nightmares for the rest of our town: if, as proposed, Iceland is knocked down to make an access road into Saxonvale, then there will be tail-back car congestion and pollution in the Market Place, Bath Street, North Parade and beyond; if the planners decide to accomodate 5000+ car journeys a day coming in via Garsdale near the Lidl’s roundabout, then there will be living congestion nightmares in Christchurch Street East, Vicarage Street and the Portway with knock-on effects beyond; and finally, if we decide to let thousands of cars a day into Saxonvale with an access road by the old First & Last pub, then visitors arriving in Frome will be greeted with a traffic jam that goes all the way back to Asda and includes knock-on effects in New Road, Rodden Road, the Portway, Locks Hill and Christchurch Street East.
Whichever way you look at it, the Saxonvale site is just not suited for accommodating tens of thousands of car journeys a week without causing major quality of life, environmental, health and economic negative imacts on the town, for residents, visitors and businesses alike. If the planners and town, district or county councils allow a car-based development to take place in Saxonvale, they may as well replace the entrance signs to Frome with the following message: “Welcome to Gridlocked and Polluted Frome”. For the planning authorities to allow such major devestation on our town’s quality of life by basing the Saxonvale development around polluting and congestive cars will be a hugely irresponsible act for this generation and the next. Even when cars go electric with minimal instant pollution, the town will still be congested. The planning authorities must make it quite clear to any prospective developers or businesses coming to Saxonvale that it is impossible to grant planning permission based on car access due to the negative impacts on the rest of our town. This will mean that Tescos and other businesses can only come to Saxonvale on a car-free basis - if they have the imagination to adapt to a Frome-built pedestrianised shopping, business, education and entertainment centre with its integrated pleasure gardens!
If we are to make Frome a truly “Wonderful Place” to live in, to visit, to do business in or to find refreshment and entertainment, then Saxonvale must be developed with imaginitive design and linked to an integrated transport infrastructure that allows access to the site by foot, bicycle, taxi, bus and train - yes we can develop a bus station and new train stations on the existing quarry train track that touches the corner of the Saxonvale site - this will not only allow stone to be brought into Saxonvale by the quarry companies during the building process (thereby lessening congestion impact on our town during that phase of development) but will also bring visitors from afar right into our town centre with a minimal carbon footprint for decades into the future. Some folk out there may think that the Age of Municipalism is over and that we couldn’t possibly create two new train stations for the town; I would argue that if all it takes to make a train station is a concrete platform, some fencing, a ticket office, a roof and some scheduling with the quarry companies and train operators and, if we can’t manage that in an age when oil is getting scarcer and more expensive, then we may as well give up and go back to the Stone Age.
I believe in human adaptability and creative evolution and I do believe that we are going to create something special in Saxonvale which will be a pleasure dome of a place rather than a congestive polluted nightmare.
Open Letter to David Heath on 11 December 2010
Dear David Heath,
Do you remember the disappointment of England losing its bid for the World Cup? Well,
- I am disappointed that you did not reply to the letter and ‘Shopping List for Saxonvale’ that I sent you.
- I am disappointed that you voted to put my son into massive debt for his future education without offering to pay a personal cheque of £45,000 to pay for David Heath’s past education. I was also dissappointed to see the massive dissapointment on the students’ faces when they realised that this Selfish Baby Boomer Parliament had betrayed them - and their grandparents’ generation who had gone through a war and austerity yet still managed to give the MPs a free education.
- I am disappointed that, with your support for the government’s education cuts, Frome will not see an expansion of Frome College to include a Creative Industries Apprenticeship College on the Saxonvale site, despite its huge potential for our local art, craft, design and entreprenurial economy, for providing business with the skilled workers it needs, for the young who wish to train outside an academic university, for people who need to re-train in a world where jobs for life aren’t guaranteed, for the long term unemployed and for local leisure actvities.
- I am disappointed that, in the tuition fees debate, you did not push for business or industry to make a contribution toward the training of its graduates and apprentices that it expects for free.
- I am disappointed that, after the 100% cuts to the Somerset County Council arts budget, you have done nothing to counteract this vandalism or to find alternative forms of funding to support the theatres and arts institutions that are such a vital part of your constituency’s creative industries economy.
- I am disappointed that you are not lobbying for National Lottery reform to find alternatives to Frome’s loss of creative industries funding.
- I am disappointed that, despite the Transport Minister’s announcement that over £8 bn will be spent on new rolling stock for the railways and despite David Cameron announcing in PMQs that he is willing to fund railway infrastructure where there are clear economic benefits, I have heard nothing from you as a past railway campaigner to improve Frome’s railway links for the 21st century.
- I am disappointed that you have stood idly by whilst a cabal of your fellow Liberal Democrats in the Town Council - with Conservative support - have bullied the Cheese & Grain trustees, scared the staff, insulted the volunteers who do such a good “Big Society” job in keeping the Cheese & Grain going, “dismayed” the supporters of the Cheese & Grain, sabotaged the venue’s chances of attracting National Lottery cash and threatened to withdraw the £35,000 annual grant (which works out at just £1.29 per resident per year to help Frome improve its entertainment facilities, its visitor footfall, its overall profitability and its regional, national and international reputation!). And what is worse, Frome Town Council’s proposals - without a business plan! - for running the Cheese & Grain are a recognized shambles full of naive incompetancies and ignorance about the subtleties of running an entertainments and community venue. If Frome Town Council persists in vandalising something that is precious to us and that is beginning to work really well, they shouldn’t be surprised if Michael Crick from Newsnight zooms down the motorway to find out why the shananagans of the local council have left it with an abandoned community centre that the community is boycotting until the next local elections.
- I am dissapointed that, in your interview with John Harris in the ‘will neoliberalism eat my town’ video, you seem prepared to acquiesce to the Tesco type giants who could ruin the centre of our town with car parks and fumes and who can suck the resources out of the town without giving anything back. Are you going to stand up and fight for your constituents’ right to have a fantastic town centre or are you going to stand idly by whilst an alien supermarket monster shed and space-gobbling ugly carparks are dumped on us without any aesthetic, environmental, cultural, quality of life or economic considerations?
So, Frome residents and their local economy are under attack with lemons being thrown at them from national government, from county council government, from town council government, from the local MP and from outside selfish commercial interests. The above examples of dissapointment are lemons being thrown back to you as our errant MP and to local, regional or national governments who really do not seem to care about the future of Frome or in adopting the town council’s logo of “making Frome a better place”.
So are we going to carry on throwing lemons at each other or are we going to unite under granny’s saying that “if someone throws you a lemon, make lemonade”? If, as a local community and economy, we wish to attract National Lottery good cause cash or the right investments for the Saxonvale Development and wider educational and economic interests, then it will be most helpful if we can provide a united front - after all, who is going to invest in a town that is in the middle of a lemon fight?
Here is the lemonade that can be announced to the local press and pinned to the door of the Cheese & Grain with a sprig of holly as a Christmas present to the People of Frome on the night of the council’s 22 December meeting at Rook Lane Chapel >
In this ‘Declaration for Frome in the 21st Century’, I, David Heath as your local MP, together with Frome Town Council, make the following pledges that we intend to keep to “make Frome a better place”:
In this ‘Declaration for Frome in the 21st Century’, I, David Heath as your local MP, together with Frome Town Council, make the following pledges that we intend to keep to “make Frome a better place”:
1. We recognize the immense value that the Cheese & Grain has brought to Frome and its potential for our town in the future and we will be extending its 30 year lease to 99 years as a symbol of sustainability into the next century.
2. We thank the trustees, staff, volunteers and the supporters of the Cheese & Grain for the fantastic work that they have done in helping bring Frome back to life since the 1990s recession. As a mark of our appreciation and our faith in the People of Frome being able to run their own community centre, we will continue to let the Trustees of the Cheese & Grain run the venue for the duration of the 99 year lease. Frome Town Council hereby formally withdraws from wishing to run the Cheese & Grain, recognising its own lack of expertise in this field.
3. Frome’s current and future town councils recognize the massive value and economic and cultural returns that the town receives for its small contribution from the town’s grants fund to the Cheese & Grain and will continue with its modest investment of £35,000 per year (£1.29 per resident) for the next three years. It will also seek, in better times, to raise the grant to £50,000 a year to improve the pay of the staff. In return, if the Cheese & Grain starts to make really healthy profits after forthcoming investments and the introduction of an outdoor stage and concert arena in the Market Yard, the Trustees will ask for a reduction in the Cheese & Grain’s annual grant and may even be in a position to replenish the public purse with a percentage of its profits (after appropriate profits have been put aside for further development).
4. Frome Town Council hereby withdraws any thoughts of taking over the Cheese & Grain for council offices and will, instead, invite the following organisations to have one or two man offices that they can share in a “one-stop shop” office development in Saxonvale: The Chamber of Commerce, CBI, Federation of Small Businesses, Connecting Somerset, Business Link, NUF & Landowners Association, the Princes Trust. Other smaller or larger office units may also be invited to this highy useful office development.
5. David Heath and Frome Town Council will unite with the Cheese & Grain Trustees and the People of Frome
in a bid to the National Lottery for vital investments and developments for the Cheese & Grain that will bring long term benefits to the town.
6. David Heath and Frome Town Coucil will unite with the People of Frome in ensuring the sustainable future of the town’s theatres and other institutions in our local creative industries economy.
7. David Heath and Frome Town Council will unite with the People of Frome to ensure that the Saxonvale development will be a car-free pleasure zone that attracts businesses and organisations that can improve the local economy and environment.
8. David Heath and Frome Town Council will unite with the People of Frome to ensure that the small one or two man businesses in the town can have affordable workshops, studios and I.T. offices in Saxonvale (Microsoft and Apple were started by one/two man businesses in a shed!)
9. David Heath and Frome Town Council will unite with the People of Frome in lobbying for an expansion of Frome College to include a Creative Industries Apprenticeship College in Saxonvale, and will seek to get approval from the Culture Secretary for insigating a ‘student architect competition and TV programmes’ for the design of the Apprenticeship College buildings.
10. David Heath and Frome Town Council will unite with the People of Frome in ensuring that any businesses attracted to Saxonvale - including a potential giant supermarket or hotel - will respect the town’s vision for a pleasurable town centre and will act responsibly by not polluting and congesting that town centre with a mass of cars.
11. David Heath and Frome Town Council will unite with the People of Frome in inviting the supermarkets and other businesses that suck money out of our local economy without giving anything back, to give-back 1% of their profits for re-circulating in the local economy and for creating a town centre that we can be proud of.
12. David Heath and Frome Town Council will unite with the People of Frome in a couple of years to apply for a National Lottery bid to create the Pleasure Gardens of Saxonvale that will accompany any developments there.
13. David Heath and Frome Town Council will unite with the People of Frome in ensuring that the town has a sustainable and practical transport and energy infrastructure at the end of the age of oil.
14. David Heath and Frome Town Council will unite with the People of Frome in promoting and marketing their town as a centre for arts, craft, design and small I.T. businesses, as a centre for a different type of retail shopping experience and as a tourist and one-day visitor destination.
15. David Heath and Frome Town Council will unite with the People of Frome in ensuring the future of Frome Library and will seek to expand its facilities with more books for the increased art, craft, design, music, I.T. and entrepreneurial activites in the town.
So you see David, despite the lemons that you, the town council and the government are throwing at Frome and despite the lemons that we must, by necessity, throw back at you, there is an opportunity for creating wonderful lemonade, though it requires you and the Town Council to support, stand up for and unite with the people and the town who elected you (yes, I did vote for you in the General Election). If you and the Town Council refuse to support the above ‘Declaration for Frome in the 21st Century’, then it will be clear that neither you, the Town Council or the National Government are of any use to the People of Frome whatsoever. Consequently, the Liberal and Conservative town councillors will lose their seats in the May 2011 elections with the backdrop of an abandoned and boycotted Cheese & Grain community building and you, personally, will not have to wait until the next General Election to lose your seat as we will act on Nick Clegg’s vision in the previous General Election Debates of “restoring faith in British politics” by being able to recall our MP when we are unhappy with him. Serious.
Alternatively, you and the Town Council can crack open bottles of lemonade together with the People of Frome to celebrate, with big smiles, your joint announcement of a unity ‘Declaration for Frome in the 21st Century’ that will put our town on a sustainable, prosperous and happy path for the future.
Tim Ashby
Copies of this letter have been sent to: David Heath MP, the 17 Frome town councillors, the Cheese & Grain Trustees, the Somerset Standard, the Frome Times, the Fosseway Magazine, Sustainable Frome, John Harris, The Guardian, Caroline Lucas MP for passing on to David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Milliband, Newsnight and other interested parties. This document can also be viewed in the ‘Open Letters’ section at: http://sustainablesaxonvalewebstartscom.webstarts.com/index.html or in the following blog: http://saxonvalesupermarket.blogspot.com/2010/12/whats-alternative-open-thread.html
Copies of this letter have been sent to: David Heath MP, the 17 Frome town councillors, the Cheese & Grain Trustees, the Somerset Standard, the Frome Times, the Fosseway Magazine, Sustainable Frome, John Harris, The Guardian, Caroline Lucas MP for passing on to David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Milliband, Newsnight and other interested parties. This document can also be viewed in the ‘Open Letters’ section at: http://sustainablesaxonvalewebstartscom.webstarts.com/index.html or in the following blog: http://saxonvalesupermarket.blogspot.com/2010/12/whats-alternative-open-thread.html